An Indigenous Elder Speaks: Honoring the Strength of Children

Interview with Louise Profeit-LeBlanc

Louise Profeit-LeBlanc is an Aboriginal storyteller, cultural educator, artist, writer, choreographer, and film script writer from the Nacho Nyak Dän First Nation in northern Yukon.  Although currently residing in Wakefield, Quebec, she has been a speaker at the Northern Alberta Baháʼí Winter School in Edmonton for the past two years in a row, both in person and virtually during Covid -19. During a conversation this weekend, Louise recounted her personal response to the traumatic news of the 215 Indigenous children recently discovered in unmarked graves at a residential school in Kamloops.

Like so many of us, initially she was overcome with shock and the feeling of collective grief for the children, their families, communities and for all Canadians. She felt in her heart that she needed to respond in some way both personally and collectively to this news so she prayed for guidance. What came to her were the words “Don’t try to fix things. Take the strength of these children and use it as a gift; recognize their lives.” In an unexpected second statement Louise then said, “Let’s review Baháʼí history – when the Báb was martyred, all the believers were scattered and disunified. They needed to come together to understand their loss and grief.” It was at that moment of recalling another historic moment of grief, that Louise felt she needed to acknowledge the strength of these 215 children with a ceremony, which they did not have after their passing.

Showing a black and white photo of a little girl, Louise recalled her Auntie Molly, who at the age of six had been taken from her family to a residential school and died there. At the time, Molly’s brothers (Louise’s father and uncle) looked everywhere for her. When they asked the adults in charge where she was, no explanation was provided. Much later, they finally found out that their sister had died. The family is still not sure of where she was laid to rest. These young boys were heartbroken.

Louise, with the images of the children in unmarked graves, the disappearance of her Auntie as a young child, and the events of the Martyrdom of the Báb in Iran 200 years ago, swirling in her mind and heart, had a vision of how to create her memorial ceremony of acknowledgment. As an aside she explained, “There are traditionalists who create beautiful sacred ceremonies, which are exclusive. As a Baháʼí, I wanted to create a ceremony where there would be more inclusivity and to invite members from all races to take part. Life is, in itself, a ceremony.”

 

She continued:

“I had this idea to take 215 smooth river stones and wash them in preparation for the ceremony. Then, around a fire pit on my patio, we created a nine-pointed Baháʼí star using red duct tape. The star had double red tape lines radiating out from the fire centre for each of the nine sides. I also placed a larger grandfather stone near the fire, as a visual marker and reminder of the elders in the next world welcoming the children into the light. The stones were divided into piles in between each of the star points.”

The next step was to invite as many people as were allowed during an outdoor gathering in Quebec at the time, which numbered eight. One of these people was an Indigenous friend who also had brought her drum and the others were friends of the Faith who work with or were friends of Indigenous peoples.

The ceremony consisted of lighting the sacred fire, smudging, and offering tobacco to each guest. Prayers were offered in several languages. Louise and her friend took turns drumming while the participants slowly and ceremoniously rose one by one to place the little stones onto the radiating red rays of the star. Each stone was placed silently to the beat of a drum. This symbolized all those little ones moving from a place of neglect and invisibility into the beautiful loving light of their Creator.  “We imagined all their ancestors in the next world welcoming the children with open arms and hearts full of love,” Louise explained, “their darkness was turned into light!”

This healing ceremony was a moving experience for all attendees. It was an individual initiative encouraging Indigenous friends to join with friends from other races and faiths in solidarity, prayer and love for a common purpose and in loving memory of the 215 children found in Kamloops, BC.

This ceremony was grounded in the spiritual practice of the First Peoples, surrounded by love and blessings of friends from other faiths, everyone being transported into the realms of the next world through the unifying power of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings of unity.

As a final touch of beauty and recognition, Louise gifted each person in attendance with a cedar decorated candle to acknowledge their part in honoring these children and in celebrating their lives. The ceremony was followed by a small feast. It is unlikely anyone at that small but mighty backyard ceremony will ever forget this experience. Now you, as the reader, are part of this offering of love as it continues to bring us all from the periphery to the centre of what it means to be truly human. Let us both end this story and begin new relationships with a prayer for unity.

“O my God! O my God! Verily, I invoke Thee and supplicate before Thy threshold, asking Thee that all Thy mercies may descend upon these souls. Specialize them for Thy favor and Thy truth.

O Lord! Unite and bind together the hearts, join in accord all the souls, and exhilarate the spirits through the signs of Thy sanctity and oneness. O Lord! Make these faces radiant through the light of Thy oneness. Strengthen the loins of Thy servants in the service of Thy kingdom.

O Lord, Thou possessor of infinite mercy! O Lord of forgiveness and pardon! Forgive our sins, pardon our shortcomings, and cause us to turn to the kingdom of Thy clemency, invoking the kingdom of might and power, humble at Thy shrine and submissive before the glory of Thine evidences.

O Lord God! Make us as waves of the sea, as flowers of the garden, united, agreed through the bounties of Thy love. O Lord! Dilate the breasts through the signs of Thy oneness, and make all mankind as stars shining from the same height of glory, as perfect fruits growing upon Thy tree of life.

Verily, Thou art the Almighty, the Self-Subsistent, the Giver, the Forgiving, the Pardoner, the Omniscient, the One Creator.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

All my relations.

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